Archive for the ‘New Orleans’ tag

Our old standby Charles W. Cushman had a few cities that he visited on multiple occasions, one of them being New Orleans. We’ve seen photos of his from the city from 1951, and we also see that he went back in 1959 to wander around, largely through the city’s residential neighborhoods. In these selected photos from Poydras Street, Dumaine Street, the Jackson Square, and Annunciation Street, we see that the cars parked along the streets tell as much of a story as does the city’s famed architecture. What do you see here?

From the signs we can see in this January 1962 photo of Carondelet Street in New Orleans, which we came across on the Historic New Orleans Collection, this would have been the section of town we’d have most likely hung out in, what with an auto parts store, an engine rebuilder, a tire place, a radiator shop, and a sheetmetal fabricator. The clunkerspotting would have been rich along this street. What do you see here?

A look at the modern-day street view of the corner of Girod and Tchoupitoulas streets in New Orleans, as seen in this December 1948 photo we came across on the Historic New Orleans Collection confirms that the Gulf service station on the far left of the image had use of the unwalled portion of the ground floor of the two-story building, which seems to us an unusual setup. Looks like the station saw decent enough business, though. What do you see here?

While the above postcard photo, which we came across on Ryan Khatam’s Flickr stream, doesn’t scream out New Orleans, for some reason the modern-day street view of Canal Street looking north does. Maybe it’s the lack of change for change’s sake apparent in the distance of decades. Maybe it’s the all-grown-up palms making the street seem a little less wide open. Or maybe it’s the greater focus on tourism in the modern scene. What do you see here?

Like most new car dealers, Pontchartrain Motor Company in New Orleans also ran a satellite business selling used cars, which we see here in this undated photo from the Historic New Orleans Collection. Makes sense, given the volume of trade-ins they likely took in on new cars. We even know where the new-car dealership was located – at 701 Barrone Street – but while one would expect to see the used-car outlet somewhere nearby, we’re not sure where this one was located and believe it wasn’t anywhere near Barrone, if the steeple in the background is any indication. So does anybody know where Pontchartrain’s used car dealership was located? And what do you see here?

According to the caption on the above photo at the Historic New Orleans Collection, the L&H Garage at 1110-12 Carondelet Street offered car storage in the quonset hut-type building in the back (what we wouldn’t give to see what was in there!), and from the March 19, 1956, photo we can see that storage was just one of the many services L&H offered. While we’re poking around 1950s New Orleans, let’s pause on this August 27, 1957, photo of a trio of cars parked behind 2201 Canal Street, below, which may have been a used car lot, possibly even connected to George Pattison Pontiac, which we came across in another New Orleans carspotting post. What do you see in these two images?

We pegged a circa 1950 date on this photo of an entrepreneur and his parking lot at 316 Chartres Street in New Orleans, which we found over at The Historic New Orleans Collection, after a cursory examination of the cars in the parking lot, but a deeper examination of said cars may warrant a revision of that date. What do you see here? And do you suppose he jockeyed all those cars by himself?

Apparently George Pattison Pontiac was a sort of landmark in New Orleans, situated on the corner of Canal and Galvez streets (2120 Canal Street, to be specific) in a handsome two-story building. As we see in this 1963 photo we found on the Historic New Orleans Collection, Pattison Pontiac also had a used car lot, apparently situated a little up Canal Street (around about 2300 Canal Street) under a shelter that is no longer standing. What do you see here?